Launch Receptive with this Detailed Checklist

We’ve created a checklist of various things you can do to make the most of Receptive. Not every single one of these is required, but we thought it would be useful to list all of our best practices in one place.

If you want a customizable checklist, get in touch with our Success team and they’ll provide you with one.

1 — Account Setup

Decide on Modules

NOTE: This should be done before anything else, so that when you set up the integration your customers have access to the correct modules.

Modules make it easy for you to filter down and focus on the most relevant data to them.

Your customers can choose which module(s) their feedback relates to on the feedback form, and can also browse requests based on module.

When deciding on modules, you’ll want to ask three questions:

Which modules will be most beneficial for our product team?

Which modules will our customers understand?

How do we ensure each customer has no more than a reasonable amount of (say, 15-20) modules?

You should hold a meeting with your Product Owners and clarify the answers to these questions.

Set up Modules

To add modules to Receptive, head to Settings > Modules.

You can then add your modules by entering their name and clicking on “Add Module”.

Your existing modules will also be listed on this page.

NOTE: Every time you add a new module, the integration needs to be updated so that your users will have access to them.

Send Integration Instructions to your Dev Team

Receptive is very easy to integrate and won’t take up too much of your Dev team’s time. The integration is a javascript snippet that connects Receptive to your product, so that your customers only need to log in to your product to be logged in to Receptive.

It also passes customer data from your product to Receptive, so your teams don’t have to do any manual input.

This template contains all the information your Dev team will need. You just need to fill in the relevant details, such as which modules you’ll be using (see above).

Review Account Settings

Receptive is extremely customizable, so you can make sure Receptive is set up to suit your organization and what you want to get out of it.

You should work through the Settings and adjust them to suit you. Some of the settings you should definitely make sure you check over are:

Email notifications (Settings > Email and Whitelabel) — Choose whether you want to enable or disable email notifications to customers or team members. This is especially important if you want to launch internally at first.

Customer view (Settings > Customer View) — How do you want your customers to access Receptive? Through the full-screen portal view, or via the in-app widget?

Languages (Settings > Language) — Add the option for your customers and team members to use Receptive in different languages.

Customize Request Form

Your request form can be tailored to suit you, ensuring that you collect the information you need.

We usually recommend that you ask targeted questions to help you truly understand your customers’ pain points. For example, asking what they’re trying to achieve, rather than what they want. (They’re often two different things, and the former is far more important.)

You can customize your request form by going to Settings > Customize Request Form.

Here are a couple of examples you could use...

Create your “Awaiting Feedback” Response

Custom responses make it even easier to keep your customers in the loop when they provide you with feedback. Whenever you update the status of a request, you can choose from a selection of custom responses that you’ve saved.

The main custom response you need to create is for “Awaiting Feedback”. Chances are most of the requests you receive when you launch Receptive will be set to “Awaiting Feedback”, and this is where you can start setting expectations from day one. You can create the responses for other statuses at a later date if you want to launch immediately.

You can create a custom response by going to Settings > Custom Responses.

Here’s a great example to get you started:

"Thank you for taking the time to give us your valuable feedback.

This request is now "Awaiting Feedback" so that we can gauge demand from other customers and gather use cases.

Make sure to click "Want" on this request if you also need it and keep your priorities up-to-date.

NOTE: The Product Feedback Policy referred to in the template will be created as part of the planning stage below.

Create Tags on a Test Request

Tags enable you to dig deeper into the data in your reports, filtering by all manner of categories, including strategic goals, pain points, project owners, and so much more.

To get started with your tags, create a test request and then add tags to it. Don’t forget you can use the format “CATEGORY:TAG” to better organize your various tags.

Here are some examples:

Project: Integrations

Project: Reporting

Strategy: Increase Enterprise Sales

Function: Communication

Status: Needs Clarification

Once you’ve tagged up your requests, you can use them to filter your data using the Advanced filters on your SmartLists and other reports.

Populate your Receptive account

Chances are you already have a backlog of feedback. Fortunately, it’s easy to transfer that feedback into Receptive by importing it as a CSV file. If you’ve integrated with Receptive, you can even import which users have voted on each request.

We recommend importing at least 20 requests, 5 of your latest releases, and a few items that you have planned on your roadmap.

This will ensure that your team members or customers can start engaging with Receptive as soon as you launch.

Whitelabel Email

By default, any email notifications sent from your Receptive account to customers or team members will be sent from support@receptive.io.

We recommend setting up email whitelabelling so that you can use your own domain instead. This is important when it comes to communicating with your customers, as any replies to support@receptive.io won't make it to you, and you'll miss out on those key conversations.

We suggest using a more generic email address like “feedback@yourdomain.com” rather than something limited like “featurerequests@yourdomain.com”.

Whitelabel Domain

We suggest that you use your own domain to host Receptive, for example, “feedback.yourdomain.com”.

You can set this up using our domain whitelabelling option. It’s quick and easy and helps keep your branding consistent.

SAML SSO

SAML SSO gives you greater control over how your team members log in to Receptive.

You can add two-factor authentication, set password strength, and more to ensure a secure log in.

2 — Third Party Integrations

JIRA Add-on (5 Minutes to Set Up)

If you use JIRA to manage your software development, then you can use our JIRA add-on to closely integrate it with Receptive.

This will automatically create JIRA issues when Receptive requests are set to “Building”. When the issue is completed in JIRA, it will be set to “Released” in Receptive.

It makes your workflow far more efficient, and helps to automate a lot of manual organization.

3 — Process Planning

It’s important to map out your process before you launch Receptive so that your teams and customers know what to expect, and so that you can make the most from your feedback.

We have a range of templates to help you do this. You can simply use 99% of the templates, and add your own tweaks to make them relevant to your organization.

Review the Workflow Guide and Best Practices

Receptive is designed to fit into your existing feedback process, but you may need to tweak it slightly to make sure it’s as efficient and effective as it can be.

Our simple and streamlined best practices can help you plan out what your workflow will be. It’s important to map it out before you launch Receptive so that teams and customers know what to expect, and so that you can make the most from your feedback.

4 — Launch Internally

Publish Team Guidelines Doc and FAQ

Before you introduce your teams to Receptive, you need to make sure they understand exactly what Receptive is and how it impacts their role.

You should publish your Team Guidelines document (see above) and share the link with your teams when you send the introductions below.

Introduce Customer-facing Teams to Receptive

Your customer-facing teams will be using Receptive a lot, and so it’s important you introduce them to it properly. Simply letting them in with no guidance could end up confusing them.

Most of our customers launch to customer-facing teams first, as they’re the ones fielding all of the feedback and so they will see the biggest time savings from day one.

You should walk them through Receptive, showing them how it works, and how they’re going to use it. Be sure to sell them on the benefits to increase the likelihood of them using it. You might also want to run a training session. If you need some help running this, then our CS team can help you do that.

Our template here will help you to introduce your customer-facing teams.

Introduce Internal Teams to Receptive

Receptive isn’t just for customer-facing teams to use. Once you’ve introduced your customer-facing teams to Receptive you can then introduce the rest of your teams.

We recommend starting with your Product team. They’ll likely need their own training session to understand how the Receptive reporting functionality works.

Once your Product team has been introduced, you can move on to your Sales, Leadership, Dev, and Marketing teams.

Again, be sure to sell the benefits of what Receptive can do for them as you walk them through the various parts.

Invite Teams into Receptive

Now that your internal teams understand how they can use Receptive and what they’ll get out of it, it’s time to let them in.

You can add team members into Receptive by going to Settings > Manage Team.

Remember to utilize team tags right away, so that your teams remain organized in Receptive. Examples include assigning team members to projects, breaking them up by region, or splitting them according to their roles.

5 — Launch to customers

Publish your PFP

The PFP that you will have created earlier is designed to help set expectations with your customers and clarify your feedback process. It also acts as a basic introduction to the concept of Receptive so it’s important to publish it before launching to customers.

You can then share it on your blog, your email newsletter, and your social media profiles. You should also include a link to it on your “Awaiting Feedback” status.

Turn On In-app Links and Customer Notifications

Before you officially launch Receptive to your customers, you need to make sure that they can actually access it. You should turn on the link inside your product, or turn on the widget if that’s what you’re planning to use.

If you’ve previously turned customer notifications off, you should remember to turn them back on, so that communication to your customers is automated. You can find notification settings in Settings > Email and Whitelabel.

Launch Receptive with an Engagement Email

Sending out an engagement email from Receptive is a great way to introduce your customers to it, and entice them to start providing feedback.

In the engagement email be sure to link out to your PFP to help clarify any details, and make clear the benefit for your customers - namely, you’ll be taking their ideas on board.

To send the engagement email, go to your “Customers” page and then click “Engage more customers”. You can then work through the dialog that opens to send the email.

Send Out Other Customer Communications (Blog, Email, Socials, Video)

While the engagement email (see above) should do most of the legwork when it comes to announcing Receptive, it doesn’t hurt to use other methods as well.

Consider writing a blog post that introduces your customer to Receptive. You could send an email to your mailing list, and you could also post on social media. A great method that lots of our customers use is to make a quick video.

Send Engagement Email after each Release Cycle

Part of your ongoing process should involve marketing your releases. You can use Receptive to do this with the engagement email feature.

Whenever you reach the end of a release cycle, you can send an engagement email to everyone. This email will show all your latest releases. It will also encourage your users to update their priorities.

We also recommend adding a link to a “Roundup” blog post that runs through everything you’ve built.

Optimize your Workflow

Your Receptive workflow is never finished. You can always tweak and optimize to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

You should consider revisiting your workflow every now and then to make sure it’s all running as smoothly as it can be.